iOnly Lied A Little
by sundroptea
Summary: She says, "We're fine- I love you –mutual." The best lies always start out with a grain of truth.
1. iSometimes Make Things Up, Though

Title: iOnly Lied A Little

Author: sundroptea

Rating: M- ish? Hopefully? Fine. It's T. But I wanted it to be M. Maybe the next chapter.

Disclaimer: If someone offered me 135,000.00 dollars for this story (incidentally enough, just the amount I need to cover my student loans) tomorrow, I would still have to say no, because I don't own any of the rights to sell. I would hate that person, loathe that person, _despise_ that person for the false hope... but I would still say no. I know where my bread is buttered, Danwarp.

Author's Note: I hope you guys enjoy. This is called drama! Melodrama! Teen melodrama- christ, I miss Roswell and Dawson's Creek. Dating myself you say? Bah!

* * *

><p>How to begin?<p>

Where to start?

She says, "Bike messenger- blood from his ears- sudden realization."

_She lies._

She lives her life on the outside. Every one of her emotions is volatile, obvious, and immediately expressed, usually through violence.

_She has literally taught classes in lying._

There are no secrets to Samantha Puckett. You get what you see and you know what you'll get. Sure, she's sneaky, but you know that. You're *prepared* for that. That is a part of her- the part that usually leads to bruises, hairline fractures and public humiliation. But still, it's something you can see coming, even if you don't know which direction it'll come from.

_Sometimes she wonders if she's really just that spectacular at it; maybe the people she surrounds herself with are just that stupid. Willfully stupid?_

She says, "We're fine- I love you –mutual."

_The best lies always start out with a grain of truth._

So it starts when they're young. How young?

Too young. Young enough that the exact beginning is blurry with age and she's only seventeen so she isn't yet so overburdened with memories that she's losing them left and right.

_Young._

* * *

><p>She wonders which came first: the longing or the resentment.<p>

Because you see, she isn't stupid. She knows that love is for people who don't mind being tied down. Love is strings. Love is never having solid ground under your chucks and being dependant on another person. (Never let it be said that Pamela Puckett taught her youngest daughter nothing.) And usually it doesn't work out and then you're not falling for anything, you've already fell and falls can kill you. Ask that Newton guy with the apple- everything comes down, in the end. (Maybe it was Chicken Little- she always gets those two confused. Whatever. Someone had an apple, that much she remembers and that's enough to prove her point.)

So anyway, she resents that she feels anything for this underdeveloped stump of a human specimen because who is he to totter in, uninvited, and mess up her equilibrium?

She also resents that he's intruding on the one relationship in her life that she knows is completely healthy (and that in and of itself should probably make her worry that it isn't as healthy as she thinks, but please. Compare it to the one she has with Melanie, especially _then_, just a few short months after Melanie had abandoned her to their mother's tender mercies, and… well, in a fair world she would have been paying Spencer rent. In a perfect world she would have just been born into the Shay family to begin with and none of this would even be a _discussion_.). Her and Carly are the kind of permanent that she doesn't know how to describe without sounding like a Hallmark Channel movie special. And she would rather gag down one of Freddie's mother's pre-cut tofu and mushroom eggless omelets than do that. (At least in that scenario she gets food- _sort of._)

So where does the longing come in? She always wants too much- gluttony is kind of her thing. So when her heart gives a flutter-thump it can't just be cardiac arrhythmia or something, like her mother's doctor boyfriend suggested (before he stole their lawnmower and the knobs off all their sinks). No, it has to be feelings for-

Look. None of this matters- it's not _relevant._ The important thing to get across here is that the people she knows so well don't know her at all. This thing didn't start suddenly. This thing is a permanent part of her and has no real origin.

That makes it really easy to go back. Because for her? It's just continuing on.

* * *

><p>"Give it here."<p>

"No! Sam!"

"God, you're such a stubhump."

"What does that even mean? You aren't going to be able to goad me into this with insults that don't even make sense."

"Does that mean that if I use ones your little bitty Benson brain can process you'll hand it over?"

"You're not a nice person."

"So they tell me, nub."

"It's nice to see you two are back to normal."

_Nice._

* * *

><p>Okay, so what happened is this:<p>

She decides that she is Samantha flippin' Puckett and she doesn't wait for things. Especially not boys who think she's abnormal. So she decides that her mother has a point- the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.

Not that Derek gets very far. He certainly doesn't get farther than Freddie did in that elevator when bare skin was brushed and legs got tangled. It's more the principle of the thing. She doesn't miss that boyrag. She just misses warm lips against her own, and the feeling that she's got a hand to hold somewhere between classes, waiting for her.

So it's not long after Freddie that Derek comes along. He's surprisingly sweet, and lays his leather jacket down on the grass for her to sit on. He blushes when she stretches out on top of it, and she doesn't mind the sunshine drenched hours they spend in the park, kissing and letting the world spin by. He isn't forward, which is not what she was expecting when she first met him, when he walked up to her at the mall and gave her a smile, and his number and didn't say a word. She learns later that he's shy, not suave, but either way he's a looker, and she is delighted that she doesn't have her heart snagged up in this one. He pulls back from kissing her and looks at her face, and she wonders what he wants from her until one day he asks.

She says no, and kisses him soundly, because she felt she should have seen this coming and she is only cruel to people who deserve it. Derek doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that she's done with the girlfriend thing.

It's too much to ask.

She doesn't go to the park after school anymore. She runs across him once during school and because she is cursed with the Puckett dating luck, she's with Freddie when she does. Since she neglected to mention Derek and, ergo, her afternoon plans, with either of her iCarly cohorts, this was double fudge awkward with a cherry. She can feel Freddie's eyes on her when Derek takes her hands and pulls her gently aside and asks her if she's changed her mind. She is red with shame and embarrassment and most of it is on Derek's behalf. She knows Freddie is waiting for her to lay Derek out like a sack of rotten Fatcakes, and she hates that she can tell what he's feeling even when she's three quarters turned away from him and all the way across the hall. She hates that Derek is talking to her about feelings instead of ignoring her and cursing her memory like he should be. Feelings were _not supposed to be involved in this_.

Derek leans in and his lips press against her forehead, and she hears something slam behind her, and it's a good thing Sam doesn't turn around, just walks off down the hall in the opposite direction of them both, because Freddie isn't standing where she left him, and that means that feelings are definitely involved now.

So sometimes she's just cruel unintentionally. That's something that she can't blame the others for not knowing about her. She didn't know herself.

* * *

><p>"Were you ever going to tell me?"<p>

"Geez, Carls, there's nothing to tell."

"I heard from Claire who heard from Wendy who heard from Jenny who was THERE that Derek Berden was CRYING in the hall over you and that Freddie cursed him out."

"Oh my god. This is the sort of gossipy gunk you fill your ears with during school hours? Maybe you should have gone to Briarwood."

"SAM."

"Okay, okay! Look, it wasn't a big deal. I met Derek at the mall and we just hung out. I bailed when it started feeling heavy. He wasn't crying!"

"Claire insists there were tears!"

"Claire is going to learn what tears look like firsthand!"

"What's going on Sam? Why would you go sneaking around with some guy and not tell anyone? Were you trying to make Freddie jealous?"

"Yes, that's exactly why I kept it a huge secret: because I really wanted my ex-boyfriend to know all about it!"

"So you admit it was a huge secret!"

"Carly! What is wrong with you? I just wanted something light, and fun and utterly unrelated to…"

"To us? So suddenly now you don't need us anymore?"

"Where did I say that? Why are you blowing this out of proportion? You aren't my keeper and I already have a twin. We don't need to live in each other's pocket!"

"Wow, Sam. Wow."

"You're taking this wrong on purpose!"

"I'm just trying to understand this! Why wouldn't you tell me? I'm your best friend!"

"It wasn't like that, Carly! It just happened! We met and we spent some afternoons together and then it wasn't working anymore. It wasn't some big conspiracy!"

"But I just don't get why you couldn't tell me."

"There wasn't anything to tell! That's what I'm trying to say! It wasn't love! It wasn't permanent! It wasn't even epic! It was just a nice boy and me passing the time. When it looked like that wasn't going to be enough- it ended. What do you want from me, Carls? A detailed introspective on every single minute Derek and I spent together?"

"No! I just… This feels like lying, Sam. You've never lied to me before."

"I didn't lie! I just didn't tell you about him. Look, I promise, in the future, if I ever have a casual relationship with a boy you will be the first one to know, ok?"

"Okay."

_Lying is relative and the truth is selective. This is fact._

* * *

><p>He's not speaking to her.<p>

This much is obvious enough, because he's about as subtle as she is, albeit in a very different way.

She just doesn't get why.

(In her heart of heart she hopes it's because he's jealous, but she knows that it's ridiculous to want that for a lot of reasons. He broke up with her- Remember? Also, she broke up with Derek- there's nothing to be jealous _of_.)

Still, she decides just to roll with it for once, because being around him is still giving her pain and she can't for the life of her put her thumb on what part of it is the worst. Is it that she's chafing under the newly re-established old confines of their 'friendship?' Is it because she misses when things were easy (easier)? Is it because she still has to mentally, brutally restrain herself from touching him whenever he's near her, something that hasn't diminished at all in the time between the 'if you weren't you' speech and now?

Yes, to all.

Truth be told, she's exhausted. Worn down. She's drained enough that she is actually empathizing with her mother's pathetic histrionics when she's in doldrums between relationships- _insanity_. Sam doesn't want to deal with anything that might be leftover from their brief tenure as BF/GF and this is the perfect excuse not to! She gets a Freddie Free environment and she doesn't even have to put in any legwork to avoid him, or his reactions, or lack thereof? If she could have wrapped this gift to herself in ham, she wouldn't have touched it. It was too fantastic already.

Even Carly is leaving her alone about it, which is unexpected but delightful. Sam decides that she's not going to think too hard about the reasons why. Why is for suckers. Why is for people who think there's a reasonable, linear progression to life.

People not her.

So she goes about her business and if her eyes look tight or tired, or if her punches are off-center, or her venom muted, well, that's a why question waiting to be asked, and she's made very clear that she is not going to get caught up in that 'why' thing.

Obviously, it couldn't last forever. Nothing does.

* * *

><p>"That just about wraps up this week's episode of 'Girly Time Emotions and Feelings'!'"<p>

"We're not calling it that. Are we calling it that?"

"Of course not! We already have all our merchandise branded ICARLY!"

"Woooo!"

"Groom your mom!"

"Save your rainwater!"

"Reject ALL purple foods!"

"WATCH ICALRY!"

"Annnd… we're clear!"

"Great show, guys!"

"For sure. I'm out. Got to see a man about a pig."

"But Sam, I thought we were going to go line up for Rage Quietly Against These Softly Falling Tears of Mine tickets! They go on sale at midnight!"

"Ah… I think I might bail on that concert. I'm low on funds, and all the salt from the hipsters weeping means dry cleaning. Tide won't cut through angst."

"You can't! We already planned our sign! We can't have THE - MOST – SAD without our SAD!"

"Way to sell it, Carls. Another time, yeah?"

"Aww, Sam!"

"Leave her alone, Carly. She obviously has better things to do. Or should I replace 'things' with 'people'?"

"Fred-!" "And just what is that crack supposed to mean, Fredbag?"

"Nothing. Go ahead and bail, just like you always do."

"Me? Bail? You're one to talk!"

"Guys! C'mon, don't fight!"

"Sam only fights with people who are weaker than she is, or who care about her. You better duck, Carly."

"You know what, loser? I don't have to stand here and listen to this from you. I don't know what your damage is but you seem to be getting 'being a huge jerk' confused with 'having a spine.'"

"At least I'm not getting 'being a huge slut' confused with anything."

"Oh, Freddie, no!"

"Screw you, Benson. Can we go back to the time where you didn't talk to me anymore? Because I was loving that. And having to hear you spew out seven different kinds of stupid is even more embarrassing to listen to than the shit you normally vomit."

"Oh, Sam!"

"You'd know all about being embarrassing, wouldn't you? You Pucketts are experts."

"Drop dead, asshole. Carly, I'm sorry about the concert. Laters."

Carly looked at Freddie as Sam slammed out of the studio. He looked pale, knuckles white around the sides of his tech cart, and his features kept wavering between regret and residual anger. Anger tightened its hold, winning the fight- especially when Carly pulled open the door and they could hear Sam on her phone in the hall.

"Hey Derek. It's Sam. Can you meet me at the park?"

* * *

><p>So, let's go back (way back).<p>

When she's fourteen she has her first kiss the way some people have debilitating car crashes- unexpectedly, suddenly and with the understanding that this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to her.

She isn't little miss sunshine (though she _did_ win that pageant when she was but a wee Puckett lass, so I guess technically- _whatever._). She isn't easy, in any sense of the word, whatever the Creddie shippers want to paint her as (and bee tee dubs, she's an internet celebrity- she has _access to it._ She knows what they're saying about her on twitter- the slagbags). She certainly isn't Carly, and honestly, she's really, _really _okay with that, though she loves that girl to bits. So she is aware that Freddie isn't in her cards. The fact that she was allowing the idea of him anywhere near her deck at all should have served as a warning to her.

That doesn't stop the dumb, random moment of- well, but it should. That's the way the bacon crackles, right?

She is such a sucker. Like, lollipops come to her for advice.

But then comes the kiss- then comes a glimmer of stupid, useless, chiz sucking _hope._ And after that, things just sort of snowballed from there. Even when you blink you see red when your face is turned to the sun. She still tries to keep her eyes closed as much as possible.

* * *

><p>"Oh my god."<p>

* * *

><p>Let's get this straight- Sam knows that she's behaving immaturely. She waited, hoping for Carly to open the door and she held her phone to her ear, and she said those words because in the deep down bad girl place that always knows what button to press to cause the explosion- she felt instinctively that it was precisely what Freddie didn't want to hear. She wonders, and she gives up on her why theory, because it doesn't make sense WHY he would be acting like such a jackwagon unless-<p>

Nope. Nevermind. It doesn't matter why. The Pucketts are a proud people for all their foibles and no one gets to talk about her shambling wreck of a mother except her, Parole Officer Jim, and Parole Officer Ricardo. Maybe also that guy whose ear Pam Puckett once bit off in a bar fight- maybe. But no one else!

So, she's okay with being a little bit immature. She is actually really friggin' ecstatic about it, truth be told. She is feeling good, centered, and even kind of wants to go a little bit bigger with it.

So when she gets to the bottom floor of Bushwell, she actually starts dialing Derek's number. She has that wild, heated feeling she gets before she makes some of her worst decisions. She wraps herself up in the sensation now, because it feels strong and warm and very welcome, and it so compliments the anger that's been slowly boiling up n her since the initial shock of the slap wore off.

Sam is imagining what she's going to do once Derek answers, and she is steadfastly ignoring the guilt that comes with it. She told him she didn't want to be his girlfriend, and she really doesn't, so she knows how hurt and confused he's going to be tomorrow, after- The small beastly part of her that is running the show at the moment screams with glee. _Good! _It seems to cry. _Let everyone be miserable! Why should I be the only one who feels like shit all the time?_

She is focused- committed. She is off the rails and ready to make some large and messy mistakes. She is strategizing a raid on Poor Choice Province, and she has her big guns out! The phone is ringing on the other end of the line, and she takes a deep breath. She is occupied entirely by picturing the thousand little splinters she can drive into Freddie's heart-

_imagining him walking into a room where she's with a faceless being who's wrapped around her and what he'd look like if she didn't notice him at all_

_imagining him hearing about how in love with her Derek is and how he'll marry her and_

_imagining how much she's going to pay for using a guy she genuinely likes to hurt a guy who probably doesn't even like **her**- no no no-_

_imagining his eyes the way they looked that night at the lock-in_

_imagining running her fingers along his lips and then smacking him fully with her open palm before walking away, laughing_

_imagining him looking in a window at her while she slowly undresses for someone else_

_imagining him standing over her grave,_

_holding the other half of a boarding pass to a place he can't follow,_

_running a few steps after a bus she's on,_

_forlorn, broken_

_imagining herself after it becomes apparent that Freddie never cared for her at all, arm in arm with some brunette who looks suspiciously like- NO!_

She is, therefore, _busy_. Too busy to look around as she stalks out the door, phone pressed against her ear so hard she could feel her pulse pounding against the plastic, second thoughts only now beginning to creep in at the edges; this is for sure. She is too preoccupied with the though that she is about to prove Fredward Benson right and make herself a liar to pay much attention to anything else.

So she understandably isn't prepared when the phone is wrenched out of her grasp. She didn't _see it coming_.

Which is fair, she thinks. No one ever accused her of being foresighted, but she wonders if she should start working on it, when she turns to face the phone snatcher, fists up, to see Freddie, breathing thunder.


	2. iDon't Ever Think Things Through

story: iOnly Lied a Little

author: sundroptea

disclaimer: Not mine. For realz.

rating: M for language and inappropriate… thoughts?

note: I'm sorry this has taken so long. I keep wanting to make this smuttier and it just keeps getting angsty/plotty. Which, please note, I never intended. I hope you enjoy it! J

* * *

><p>Well, fine. Let's just think this through, shall we?<p>

* * *

><p>Now:<p>

She's not quite sure where she expected this to go. She's at a loss. Her mouth is open and she thinks that the situation might have gotten away from her a little. She sure didn't think that the consequences would be catching up with her quite so soon- like before she's even done the deed yet. She winces, the deed indeed. _Get out of here!_ This is what she's thinking at the moment, on the street.

Her phone is being fairly crushed in Freddie's fist and she can hear Derek saying, "Hello? Hello? Sam?" in a tinny voice on the other end. She isn't positive, but she thinks that maybe her face is red. Freddie's is, that's for sure. Her mind is blank. Escape is unlikely, considering she's forgotten everything she ever knew about feet, and having them, and what they're for. She just exists in an interminably long moment of utter surprise.

Involuntarily, she takes what for anyone else would be called a hasty step back, except Pucketts never retreat. It's so quick she actually raps the back of her head on the wall of the Bushwell. The pock-marked brick digs into the exposed parts of her back, but she doesn't feel it. All that glorious resentment from earlier has fled, like a meat thief in the night. She is completely empty, and thinks, _'Welp. Everything's over. That's just it.'_

She feels strangely detached, and wonders if the end always feels like nothing at all. Or maybe something, she thinks, when she registers Freddie's expression. She's never seen him so angry, his lips peeled back in what could _almost_ be termed a snarl.

But his voice is measured, even, as he brings her phone to his ear.

"Derek? Sam is going to have to call you back."

Her throat goes ever so slightly dry.

Ballz.

* * *

><p>And before:<p>

"What the _lump _was that?"

"Shut _up_, Carly. I'm not in the mood."

"You're not in the _mood_? You just jumped _all over _Sam out of nowhere! What sort of mood do you think _she's _in, now?"

"That's not any of my business, is it?"

"_Really? That's your answer?_ Where was that attitude two minutes ago when you just called our best friend a dirty wh- unclean woman of limited virtue?"

"I don't care! If she wants to run around with guys, then she's going to get a reputation. She should know that if she's going to continue."

"Continue WHAT?"

"You know damn well what! Her and Derek-"

"Ended weeks ago! What's got you all in a-lather about it now?"

"Oh, so because it didn't last long it's okay to just jump into bed with whoever happens to slow down long enough for you to hop on?"

"_What_?"

"Don't what me, Carly. I know all about it- no thanks to you, by the way. You could have told me!"

"Told you what? Nothing happened!"

"That's not what I heard."

"Wait, has Derek been saying that he and Sam... _you know_?"

"Like I would ever talk to that... that... stubhump!"

"So then who's been saying that Sam and Derek… you know? Because I will have to go set them straight and I might need to borrow the butter sock to do it."

"I don't know. People."

"Oh, people, sure. Which people?"

"Carly..."

"There are no people! You just made up people!"

"You just don't-"

"You have nothing, not even idle gossip, to back you up! Of all the nasty, petty, _nasty_, jealous... Oh my god."

"Shut up, alright?"

"You shut up! No! Wait! Don't shut up! You go apologize to Sam _right now."_

"For what? You heard her. She's got_ plans_. I wouldn't want to interfere."

"You are an IDIOT, Fredward Benson. You and your stupid jealous face! Good! Don't _interfere_! Be like that!"

"I just-"

"No! You leave her alone! For the first time ever, I think Sam should totally screw you over. Whatever fresh hell she thinks up for you... It's only fair!"

"Carly!"

"At least Derek never made her feel like trash! That's right! I hope she's meeting him right now and that he's... slowing down, if you know what I-"

The door slammed so hard the glass across the belly of it cracked.

* * *

><p>And much earlier (an interlude):<p>

"What are you doing up so late, nub?" Her hair is tousled from sleep and he thinks he sees a streak of Bar-B-Sauce smeared across her cheek, but it's dark in her room so he can't be sure. She's beautiful

"It's only two in the morning!" he protests, not wanting her to sign off just yet. She rolls her eyes at him.

"'Only' says the boy who's lights go off on a timer sharply at 8pm every school night."

"Hey. I thought we agreed that our moms are both nuts and therefore cancel each other's crazy out. No mom jokes." She scrubs the heel of her hand across her forehead.

"Benson, that wasn't making fun of _your mother._ But whateves. It still doesn't explain why you Skypeared me at _only_two in the morning. Momma was catching z's like the Lohan chick catches cases."

"I don't know. I thought you might be up?" It's lame, and he knows that she knows it.

"Try again."

He goes with diversion. "Do I need a reason to want to hear my girlfriend's voice? Or see her pretty face?"

Said face crinkles in confusion, and slight horror. "Pretty face? What in the hell are you talking abou- Ohmigod. Are you having the faps-"

"WHAT? No!" His jaw drops open. How could she-

"Because I am not a piece of meat, Fredward Benson! I am not here because your wet dream was too dry!"

"SAM! That isn't- You're- I'm not! Look! Both hands!" He waves them frantically over the dim glare of his illicit flashlight. (_Night is night and day is bright, that's why we turn off the lights!_) He stops when he registers her snickering laughter.

"Chill, nub. I'm joking. You would never." He doesn't know what that's supposed to mean, but then he rarely does, with her.

"But seriously, what's so important that we had to facechat right now, when we're going to be kissing each other good morning in, oh, about four hours. Did you have a bad dream, or something?"

"Or... something."

"C'mon. Tell Momma."

"It's just been so busy lately. I was up, thinking-"

"First mistake!" she interjects. He gives her a dirty look and she immediately looks contrite. It's not a common expression for her so he knows she means it. "I'm sorry, baby. Go on. I'll be good."

He loves when she calls him that.

"I just started to worry that..."

"Worry what?"

"Worry that you and I weren't getting enough time to..."

"To...?" She never usually has to drag feelings out of him, so this must be very difficult for her. He's the one who she calls Mr. Feely-McTouchy-In-That-Order.

"To just... To just be, you know?" This is a strange conversation to be having. He isn't expressing himself correctly. He doesn't know how to say what he wants to say. What he wants to say feels an awful lot like, "I lov-"

"I sorta get it. It feels like it's so rushed right now, with school and iCarly and other things, like all we have time to do is make out. Like, hardcore. Which, don't get me wrong- I'm all about. Who knew you had those lips in you? And that _tongue_. Whew."

"Sammy..."

"Are you blushing? You're blushing! After what you did with my bra opener the other day, you have no right to blush, Benson!"

"I just wanted to talk! Okay? It feels like even when we get to see each other we don't even get to be with each other and I just wanted to be able to see you and talk for a few minutes, just so that I could go to sleep... happy."

"I... make you happy?" Her face is the softest he's ever seen it. She's all shiny blue eyes and pink, pale cheeks and he wishes he were next to her so that he could brush his lips across them to see if they're warm. Something is slowly unfurling behind her gaze and it makes his heart skip and then beat triple time.

"You make me... elated," he confesses. She bites her lip and he wants to do it for her. "A smile from you is... It's worth... You're kind of worth everything."

"Even the beatings?"

"Even the beatings! They're not so bad. And it's mostly Gibby now, so-"

"Shut up!" He laughs, but then he quiets again. Without realizing what he's doing, he reaches out to touch the screen. She pauses a moment, and then does the same.

"Sometimes, I just want to see you and know... that you're mine and that... you're happy, too."

"Oh. Well." She clears her throat, and drops her hand, and he knows that's all the Feely-McTouchy he's going to get out of her tonight. "That's fine then."

"Yeah?" He knows what she means, because she doesn't look straight at him, and her face (it's definitely bar-b-que sauce) is still a little pink.

"It's only two, Freddie. I guess I have a moment to talk."

* * *

><p>Presently:<p>

Alright. This doesn't have to be a thing. He's made it abundantly clear that they are nothing to one another except a strategic annoyance. This can just be part of the fight from earlier, and will end cleanly, and quietly.

Which would be great, only he isn't saying anything, just glaring at her, like he's daring her to make a move. She doesn't. She's still pressed back against the side of the Bushwell, watching him warily. For once, she doesn't know how to attack.

Maybe if she just... "Soooo, can I get my phone ba-"

"No."

So, no. It looks like they're just going to stand here for awhile then. She doesn't understand why this is so awkward. She gets caught red handed all of the time. Her palms are scarlet with her own delighted treachery. Her seat in detention has a plaque with her name on it. Her parole officer brings his family over on Thanksgiving. She is on a first name basis with trouble- _Why hello, Trouble! What brings you here? Me? 25 pounds of tuna, Ms. Brigg's car, and a slimjim? Now what on earth would make you think I had anything to do with that? Fingerprints? Aww, horsepucky._

And she remembers that he has no right to be standing there, too close to her, hands fisted at his sides, with that look on his face like she's the one doing something wrong. She is free to do as she pleases, to do what (who? She shudders) she pleases, and he doesn't get to be mad about it. She remembers all of this but she has yet to move, because she's still riding that wave of numbness so unfamiliar to her and she doesn't know how to work this new, phone snatching, fire breathing version of the boy she-

She tries to swallow but it feels like that time when Gibby had dared her to eat the Jawbreaker in under an hour.

Whatever. This is ridiculous. She huffs and starts to sidle to the right of where he's looming, apparently content to stand there and glower. He can't be serious. She isn't a child he needs to discipline.

"Keep the phone, nu-" She's cut off by Freddie's palms slapping the bricks on either side of her head. Holy chiz. The plastic on her phone's case makes a grinding noise from the pressure of it scraping the wall.

"Don't you _dare_ walk away from me. Not this time."

Oh, there's the anger! It's back. She sighs in relief. She thought maybe the knot in her stomach from earlier was something she'd heard of once or twice... guilt, she thought maybe it was called? No matter now! She's ready and in the ring again, leading the bell.

"Because I'm all about listening to random assholes who order me about on the street."

She moves to duck under his arm, but he brings his elbow down and presses closer, boxing her in. _Now_ it all makes sense, she thinks. It didn't work out because he has a secret desire to be a lady, and he's asking for my help with the sex change. She feels like violence and it's so familiar she could spit with glee.

"Get. Off. Me," she breathes, to no effect. He doesn't move. "I'm not going to say it twice, stub."

"Why? Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have _plans_?" He leans so heavily on the last word it gasps a little and sinks to its knees under the weight. She fights the urge to swallow and decides it's time to throw him off.

She braces her hands behind her and shoves very deliberately off the brick, forcing Freddie to either step back or basically velcro their bodies together. He gives her an inch, maybe. She decides to work the joint. "I will, big ones, as soon as you get your goddamn hands off my phone."

She doesn't know if the hit lands. His expression doesn't change.

"Is that so?" he asks, mildly. He steps back, finally, and she doesn't know how to weigh the small shiver of hurt that courses through her that he's come to his senses against the wash of relief that this bizarre encounter is finally over. She decides that not thinking has worked well for her for so long where he's concerned, that she's just going to keep on keepin' on. She meets his eye, and shrugs, letting go. It's done.

He keeps her gaze, steadily, as he brings up his arm, but he has to break contact when he pivots and spikes her goddamn Pear Phone 2 into traffic. Her jaw flaps open. He resumes his observation of her, coolly, and it's like he doesn't realize he's pretty much just signed his own death warrant.

"What the hell?" she explodes, shoving him savagely, and dimly notes that this might really be it, for both of them, because he doesn't so much as flinch but keeps flexing his fists like he's just as ready for violence as she is. He cocks his head.

"I guess now you have a moment." His voice is level. "To _talk_."


	3. iNever See It Coming

Title: iOnly Lied A Little

Author: sundroptea

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Rating: M – seriously the mouths on the kids these days!

Note: The language in this one is slightly atrocious, because Freddie and Sam are slightly atrocious to each other. I'm ever so sorry that it took so long- the idea was to have this finished before Danwarp smashes my continuity all to hell. But whatever. I Mario jump on your canon and red shell you with my fanon. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

><p><em>Last time on 'This Week's Episode of Bad Ideas and How to Follow Them':<em>

He keeps her gaze, steadily, as he brings up his arm, but he has to break contact when he pivots and spikes her goddamn Pear Phone into traffic. Her jaw flaps open. He resumes his observation of her, coolly, and it's like he doesn't realize he's pretty much just signed his own death warrant.

"What the hell?" she explodes, shoving him savagely, and dimly notes that this might really be it, for both of them, because he doesn't so much as flinch but keeps flexing his fists like he's just as ready for violence as she is. He cocks his head.

"I guess now you have a moment." His voice is level. "To _talk_."

* * *

><p><em>The Interim, with prejudice:<em>

"So, how's unemployment treatin' ya?"

"Go away, Sam."

"Oh, c'mon. Don't be like that."

"Like what? Irritated that you've taken ruining my life to a new personal record? Actually getting me FIRED from a job I've always want-"

"Oh, cram the melodrama, Benson."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't sound so confused. I know you. You never wanted to work there."

"What the hell? How can you even say that?"

"Because it's true? I do know you. And also, who the fuck dreams of being a retail slave? That job has nothing to do with computers, and everything to do with being a salesman, which, hate to break it to you, you suck- like,_ super suck_- at. You might want to work for Pear, but you want to work for the engineering side, which I doubt getting laid off from a Pear store will prevent you from doing. So, seriously... stop moping around. It's lame."

"Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be doing inventory right about now?"

"Right. 'Cause that sounds like me, totally. Wait- do they provide snacks for the inventory idiots?"

"No."

"Oh, yeah. Then I quit. Real people jobs are for suckers."

"But you were a manager!"

"And if I had to listen to Stephanie complain that Dillon was poaching her sales one more time, it was going to end in violence. Spectacular violence."

"I will never understand you."

"I am not for comprehension by nubs and the lowly. Someone is just going to get hurt if you try. Now get up. It doesn't bother me, but people are starting to wonder why there's a guy laying on the floor of the Smoothie Queen. I think they called security and if I get arrested again I'm going to miss the Girly Cow season finale tonight. They don't get CBN in juvie."

"But-"

"Whatever, then. Opportunity lost. I've done my good nub deed for the day. I'm done. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"But why-"

"Why is for losers, Benson. Oops! Mall cops. That's my cue!"

"But, Sam!"

"He's over there, officers! It's like he just _collapsed _or something! It was so scary. I think he needs to go to the hospital. You should probably call his mom!"

"Noooooo! You can't- She'll- Sam! Sam! It took me three months to get her to agree that I could have an afternoon job- She'll- Sam!"

"Annnnd, scene."

* * *

><p>And our feature presentation:<p>

Sam is ready to explode. She wants very badly to be on her way. She's so tired; she just wants to be home. She doesn't know how to get around all the shit in the way. She thinks about Derek, probably wondering what the hell is going on. She thinks about Freddie, and wonders what the hell is going on with _him_. She kind of wishes that Freddie is so angry because he's guessed what the worst part of her is planning.

But she doesn't allow herself to really think that, because in a weird way she feels like that would be getting her hopes up. It's not a great place in her head right now. She can't figure out the point of this little pow wow, and it's wearing on her.

"Alright. You want to talk? Talk. What's there to say? Except, 'I'll be getting your new phone to you ASAP.'"

He doesn't say anything. For a boy who seems intent on having some sort of confrontation with her, he's remarkably quiet.

"You should mail it."

He purses his lips.

"Do you think they'll still give you the employee discount?"

Still nothing.

"If this is what you wanted to talk about you suck at conversation."

"Are you finished?"

"With what?" Sam throws her hands in the air, then crosses her arms stiffly in front of her. They just brush the chest of his shirt. "I haven't _done_ anything!" _Yet_, she worries. "You're the one having a goddamn hissy fit in the middle of the street! You're the one who broke my phone, after finding some way to be pissed off at me, even though _you're _the one who called both me and my mom _sluts_!"

His eyes tighten and for the first time she sees his angry facade crack a little. He opens his mouth, and it's shaped like an apology. She doesn't have room for it right now.

"So what, Benson? What, exactly, am I supposed to be finished with? You? Yes. I am _absolutely_ done with you!"

He looks like he's taking his anger by both hands and doing all he can to wrestle it into submission. He has limited success.

"Look, Sam. I know things aren't the best between us right now-"

"No kidding? And here I thought you chased me down to hug it out." Freddie scowls. "Would you get to the point? Today? Christ." She fidgets, and wishes that she had run, taking the stairs two and three at a time, recklessly, instead of slowly and deliberately, trying to measure out her breathing. Then maybe she would be somewhere else by now, and that's really all she wants. She decides to become a statue- to pull all of her muscles together and make them granite and sandstone and become a blank slab impervious to all.

"What is this thing with Derek?" he just explodes, one moment stoic and the next out of control. She simply stands with her arms crossed and her expression irritated. They're switching personalities.

"For real? That's what this is about?" She's kind of surprised, not really having expected it to have anything to do with Derek, specifically. Sam doesn't know where, exactly, he's going with this.

Which isn't to say that she's not angry about it.

"I know you're probably-"

"You don't know anything at all, Benson. Never have, and for sure won't from here on out."

He deflates. "Goddamn. Why do you always have to be so difficult?"

She flings her arms up. "I'm not being difficult! I'm not being _anything_! I didn't ask you to follow me. And you don't have any right to ask me about Derek!"

"I don't have a right? _I_ don't?" He's parroting her and she gets now what it means when someone says 'their hackles were raised.' Freddie looks like one big hackle.

"No? I'm not your business anymore. Too abnormal, remember? And difficult, apparently. And a skag, of course. I don't ask you about your-" she forces a snide laugh to bubble up her throat. She worries she's going to choke on it, because the conversation is getting a little bit close to turning down an avenue she really doesn't want it to. "I'm sorry. You'd have to _have_ relationships for me to ask you about them."

"Sure. Be a bitch. That's what you always do when you're too chicken shit to deal with something, isn't it? Then you run away. That's your encore. Well, I'm not letting this go."

"Letting what go? Your obsession with my afternoon plans? Your bizarro fixation on my other friends?" She winces, because -_bingo_- she's managed to walk straight into the minefield she was trying to avoid. His _involvement_ with her friends was exactly the last place she wants this to go. She knows that she's going to say things that she doesn't want to. Not because they'll hurt him- no, if it were that stopping her she would have let 'er rip three words into whatever this confrontation is supposed to be. She doesn't want to talk about him and her _friends_ because she knows only too well that she's the one who would suffer if they got into it.

"I'm not obsessed with anything, let alone who _you _choose to spend your time with. Especially stupid jerk losers who wear leather jackets and have friggin' emo hair. I don't care! But you're making a mistake, and it's just because you're mad at me and I'm not having that on my conscience."

"You _arrogant_ son of a..." she breathes, almost impressed. "To think that you would assume my extracurriculars have anything to do with you... God, what a pair on the supernub. If that's all, feel free to hop along, Cassidy, with a clear guilt meter." She pulls her hair back and up into a bun as she turns to walk away. Her with her hair up always drove him crazy, and she thinks that he deserves whatever she can throw at him, after the many, many, _many_ ways he's managed to kick her while she's foetal today. "What I'm about to do with Derek has nothing whatsoever to do with how much I hate you right now." Even though it really did, which was a sobering and not altogether pleasant thought. She decides to reconsider the details of her afternoon, somewhat, but he doesn't need to know that.

Or maybe he does, because she hasn't gone three steps before he's pulling her back again.

"Bullshit, Sam." She panics- can he read minds now? "You're doing this because it'll- you think it'll hurt me. And that's a crap excuse to make a such a stupid decision." His tone is so self-righteous it makes her molars throb. She is abruptly furious, and her vision goes hazy with it. Bad Decision Train had been losing steam, chugging more slowly along, almost stalling, but never fear! The conductor found more coal and, manoman, are we ever racing now! Freddie must be able to read it in her face, somewhere, because he looks wary suddenly and he steps back.

_Well,_ Sam thinks. _In for a jerky strip, in for a pound._

"Oh," her voice is almost a snarl. "Because you would never do anything just because it would make me miserable? You're so above all of that!"

"I wouldn't! I'm not saying I'm above it, but, Jesus, I'm not about-" He is silenced by the malice in her glare.

"Sure. Do you really want to try that? The whole lying thing? Because the next word out of my mouth is going to be 'Carly' and I think we can both agree that you're going to look mighty stupid."

* * *

><p><em>Another set of eyes:<em>

"So..."

"No."

"But-"

"Just get the counter wiped so that we can mop and get out of here."

"But, Sam-"

"Gibby, so help me FatCakes, shut yer face."

"Sam, I'm just concern-"

"Does anything that's about to shoot out your word hole have to do with the restaurant, or with iCarly?"

"Well, you could say-"

"Gibby."

"No."

"Then leave it alone."

"I just want to know how you're dealing with this- where you're at."

"Where I'm 'at' is one more word about this away from staging 'Gibby versus The Butter Sock Fight Night- One Time Only- Live at 'The Gibby's Place.'' It will get butts in the chairs, and I get sole ownership of this place if you die. Gotta worry about keeping it fresh for the customers."

"I'm sorry. Ok? You're my friend, Sam. I care about you."

"Freddie and Carly are your friends, Gib. I'm just some girl who wandered in to sling hot meat. There is no reason why you should be more concerned with-"

"Oh, come off it, Puckett. Grow up."

"...Exsqueeze?"

"Just because Freddie is acting like an idiot, and possibly crushing after Carly again, it doesn't mean that we all have to turn into our eleven year old selves."

"Hot damn, Gibster, you're on fire tonight! Now take a swipe at Carly, or Principal Franklin!"

"I would never. That man is a saint."

"Be that as it may-"

"Sam!"

"Shut up! Okay? I don't want to talk about Freddie and his stupid feelings. They don't have anything to do with me. And even if I did want to talk, they don't have anything to do with _you_, so why would we be chatting about it?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Because I have been over that nub since about three minutes after I started dating him, and you and I have never been braid-your-hair-talk-about-your-feelings-glitter-buddies.

"You're my partner. If we can trust each other with our just.. _crazy successful_ business than I don't see why you can't trust me enough to talk to me."

"It is crazy successful, isn't it?"

"Shoosh yeah!"

"So... It's official then?"

"Our complete domination of this school's tastebuds and spending money? Survey says _jeah_."

"No, stump. I mean... have you talked to him about... Carly?"

"I haven't been able to get a lot of out him lately. He's been in a funk for a few weeks, now. To be honest, I've kind of been avoiding him."

"What?"

"Look, Sam. Before you and he... you know... scarred the rest of us with a freakin' enormous amount of public tongue exchange- ow!"

"Gibby!"

"Ok, ok. Kidding! Before you two got together, he came to me for advice. Or, well, I tripped over him and offered. One of the two."

"So this unsolicited interfering is like your thing now? This is your new 'random stripping?'"

"Firstly, it was never random. There was always a reason. Secondly, my advice is good. My advice is right."

"Right? You mean you told him that us dating would be a bad idea? Nice."

"No, gun jumper. I told him that he'd better be sure, because he was an idiot if he went for it and fudged it to Topeka. I told him that if he tried to come between you and Carly-"

"Never happen."

"Ok, I am totes all about giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Puckett, because I'm sure you learned something from Shane and that idiot intern... Steve? Tom? Poop? Whatever. De-regardless. But he has no place getting in the middle. Because it wasn't going to be either of you girls that ended up alone. He seemed to get it at the time, so I kind of wonder what his end game is here. Because he seemed pretty damn sure that it wasn't Carly he wanted to take that risk for."

"I-"

"No, think about it! The only reason I can see him even trying this is to piss you off. And he's not stupid, and he would probably tell me if he was thinking about suicide. We all signed that anti-bullying pact. And as far as I know, the breakup was mutual?"

"Oh, yeah. Completely. No hard feelings _here_. Right on, with the mutualism... yeah."

"...K? But did anything happen recently? Are you fighting again? Mostly I've just seen you ignore each other."

_And this conversation is perhaps the root of what happens outside Bushwell Plaza- because the only thing that had happened recently, since the restaurant, was Derek and her in the hallway, with Freddie looking on from the side._

* * *

><p><em>And now:<em>

His face shuts down. "That's not the same thing."

"Oh, I believe you! And I agree! My meeting a nice guy who has nothing to do with you is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from you trying to weasel your junk into my best friend's closet. Only I don't think I'm the one making the _mistake_, Benson." She feels her epiglottis swelling and is beyond humiliated to realize that unless she can get ahold of herself, tears will be on their way. She coughs savagely to cover it and uses the cough to explain why she suddenly can't look him.

They're at the crux of it now, she thinks. This is the big thing that'd been swelling up like an inflatable wall between them. Had it started growing been since they've been broken up? Before that? Sam ached to know. When, exactly, did he realize that he'd gotten bouncy and blonde instead of serene and brunette? It hardly mattered, because either way, he'd clearly figured out his glitch.

"Weasel my juh- Are you serious?" He looks stunned, and she itches to slap the stun right out of him.

"Are _you_? I mean, what is this? Why would you even- Do you love her? Is that it? Has that always been it? Have you loved her all along and I was just a distraction? Someone to make _her_ jealous?" She shoves at his shoulders. His hands come up defensively, but she just wraps her arms around herself, as if finally noticing the chill that had settled with dusk falling. "At least with Derek when I realized he had feelings for me I broke up with him. God. Did you even _like_ me?"

Freddie breathes in like he's been sucker punched in the spine with something much denser than an orange. "Sam!" He tries to take her hand, but she dodges him, and she feels like all the words she hasn't said for _months _are exploding like verbal C-4 out of her mouth. She presses her palm to her lips in an effort to _shut her friggin' piehole_, but the words keep coming.

"Did you? I mean, even as a friend? Because... because you didn't have to say it. You didn't have to tell me you loved me, if it wasn't true. I got it- we weren't gonna work. I'm not what you want. I GET it. You didn't have to _lie_."

Her throat is now closed because of how tight it is, and she is embarrassed that her voice cracks. She refuses to let what's about to happen happen in front of him. She is determined to stave off the inevitable until she's not in his presence. She wishes she wasn't as surprised as she is by just how much worse she feels now that it's out in the open. Isn't the truth supposed to set you free? She's never felt more trapped in her life.

It doesn't help that he grabs her; takes her by the arms, dragging her against him, and it feels so much like when they were together, so much like when he would pull her in to hold her close, that she chokes. Something this painful should not feel like getting home after a long day, like waking up to bacon pancakes, like an 'I love you' when it's just a misplaced 'I'm sorry."

Her body can't tell the difference and it feels like her muscles have relaxed after an age of being tensed to strike and she knows it's going to hurt like a sonuvabitch in a minute. Despite all her effort, she starts to cry, and her humiliation is complete.

This? This right here is why she avoids any and all discussions about 'feelings'. Nothing good ever comes of it. She was right the first time; it's insanity to ever let anyone in, nuts to think it would work out for her. She should never have started any of this and she has learned her fuckin' lesson, she swears. No men, no love, no relationships for Sam Puckett. Bad news, is all that is. She hopes Troubled Waters still has 'Crazy for Quesadillas' Tuesdays.

Her forehead drops to his shoulder, more out of a sudden sweep of tiredness than any tender feelings that might be lingering. She tries to soak up the sensation of his arms around her, his skin and sweat and weight against her, because after this she isn't going to let him get within twelve feet of her body, and she's going to take one last hit before she goes cold turkey. Her tears are hot and leave marks on his shirt. She tries to pull back, but he clutches at her, and it feels like he's taken a crowbar to her chest where her heart is pounding.

"I didn't lie, Sam! I-"

"Save it, ok? You're the one who wanted this little heart to heart, right? I _didn't._ The whole point is, you don't have any say in what I do, just like I don't have any say in yours. Whatever I do is my own damn business, so mind your own!"

"Sam, please, I didn't mean it like-" He's too close- it's too much- he needs to just stop- she needs _space_!

"For fuck's sake, let me go!" She breaks his grip, and it's a good thing too because they're starting to attract attention- generally boys and girls screaming at each other on street corners do, even in Seattle. She lowers her voice, because the last thing in the world she needs right now is another mark on her record or a night with Seattle's finest. It comes out tired. Her eyes drop to her Chucks. "It's all over! Done! You can stop now. Really. I'm not going to try to get between you and Carly- seriously, have at her, cowboy. But from now on, stay out of my business because I don't need your pity and I _really_ don't need you judging me."

She sighs. The exhaustion creeping up on her is ample and vicious. "Just- just leave me alone, Freddie."

She thinks maybe all her problems stem from the fact that she needs to pay more attention to what's going on around her. If she had just picked up on a lot of things sooner, she probably wouldn't feel like she was about to vomit her heart out of her chest. She also might have been able to avoid what happened next- turned or knocked Freddie unconscious or jumped bodily into traffic. Instead she just keeps her head down and studies her toes, hoping that Freddie will walk away soon, because she really needs a minute here. The world could explode, the moon could fall out of its orbit, every Fatcake in the world could go stale at all at once- she doesn't care- nothing could make her day any _worse_.

She thinks this, sagging bodily against the wall, trying to will her feet to move, until she notices Freddie stiffen in front of her. _What __**now**__? _she thinks. _I couldn't possibly have found some way to offend his delicate sensibilities by staring at the ground. _She doesn't look up at first, because she is sure that it has nothing to do with her, whatever's buggering him now. She's positive. Confident.

At least, she is until someone- someone who isn't Freddie- says her name. "Sam?"

Her head jerks up. Derek is standing right in front of her.


	4. iRarely Ever Mean It

Title: iRarely Ever Mean It

Author: sundroptea

Rating: M this time for realz guys- the petting isn't too graphic but I certainly use a _swear_.

Disclaimer: Not mine, because I'm not stupid enough to make Carly kiss Freddie, or try to ruin something that he seems to have inadvertently built. I'm talking to you, Dan Schnieder.

Author's Note: Sorry it's been awhile. I never stopped working on it, but I got slumped after the series finale. I'm back in my groove with it now, and I hope you're still reading!

* * *

><p>She swipes at her eyes with the palm of her hand quickly, because crying in front of Freddie has been an unavoidable evil but crying in front of two boys in one day is <em>her mother<em>. She pulls herself together so fast, she can almost hear the neurons snapping like rubber bands in her mind.

"Sam, is everything alright?"

Derek is there and he looks _concerned_. He is staring at her like he is _drinking in her features_ and while that's something she always imagined when she snatched trashy romance novels from her mom's dresser, she never expected it in real fucking time. He is reaching for her, hands stretched to cup her elbows, because leather jacket aside, he's kind of an effing gentleman, only-

He's reaching around Freddie (_and, she admits, when she did read those paperback pulp fictions, the boy who she imagined was shorter, stockier, and had a propensity for striped apparel _((and is she _ever_ mother truckin' through with lying today- she can't even lie to _herself-_))) to do it and she makes the worst mistake that she could. She looks at Freddie. Her face is wet, and snotty, and from the corner of her eye she sees Derek looking like he's upset about why. Freddie, he's staring at her too- _utterly consumed_, the novels would call it, _struck_ and _riveted_- only it's with that same look of half- bemusement/ half-horror that she remembers from the night of the lock in. Like he just can't place who she is, or what she's doing there, but that he wishes she weren't-

It isn't a sob, because she doesn't let her lungs expand.

She has seen her mother in enough post-relationship meltdowns to realize that there's nothing she can do to make her eyes less red, or less swollen, but she can clear her throat and level her voice like a mo-fo champ so she does.

"Hey!" It's lame and she accepts that, because she says it to the boy who is rapidly shifting from concerned and confused to pissed off and _not happy_. She doesn't think that Derek's uncharacteristic mood swing is a product of her deficient conversational skills as much as it is a factor of Freddie still having her boxed in with his body and his (reflexive, she tells herself) unwillingness to let Derek pass. She shoves at Freddie. "What're you doing here?"

"I got a weird call from you, a guy's voice comes on the line and then it keeps going straight to voice mail? I got worried, and I knew that you had just finished up the show. I made a wild guess where you'd be."

"Good guess! Only we're in the middle of a conversation," Freddie begins, seeming to recover from the stupor he'd been stewing in. He's starting to turn to him and she takes that as an opportunity.

She's moving, and quickly, and she doesn't know if it's to diffuse the situation or if it's to make it worse. At this point she doesn't know what form 'worse' would take but she's had just about all she can take of 'bad enough.' She dodges Freddie, grabs Derek's arm and steers him away, but it's like she's moving through water because she's all wrung out and her legs feel like jelly. It's probably part of the reason why Derek is able to shift her when he swings around. The other part might have something to do with Freddie, since he's got her by the wrist again. Oh bad. Ugly bad.

"Sam, was it this guy on the phone earlier?" he says, and Sam wants to facepalm herself into a coma. She's getting an inkling of what 'worse' is going to look like. If she came away from her brief tenure at Chili-My-Bowl with anything it was that she hated pissing contests. That restroom was a mess and you can only bleach your skin so much before it's not even skin anymore. She doesn't need to be caught in one on the street.

"It doesn't matter, Derek. Let's just get out of here, ok?" Freddie glares at her, and gives her wrist a shake like she's a terrier of some sort that needs discipline. She curls her fist. "Let go, Freddie."

They both look down at where his fingers are overlapping themselves across her skin. His thumb moves slowly, gently, across her pulse, and it's like he can't help himself from doing it any more than she can stop the shudder that ripples through her body. He notices, because the expression on his face changes from the one he uses when he's confused to the one he uses when he's made up his mind.

Her heart flips over and she can't help that either.

* * *

><p>"It's only ten-thirty."<p>

"Do… you want to break up at midnight?"

"That works!" "Okay!"

_A question: Is it lying if you're pretending, too?_

* * *

><p><em>Not that long before that, all things considered…<em>

This touching thing (at least, non-fist-to-sternum-or-nasal-cartilage touching) is new, obviously. Which isn't to say it's _bad_. They're curled up on her couch (a worn, corduroy reject from Tasteland that her mom calls 'vintage' and she calls 'secondhand') and the rasp of the knap against the part of her back bared by her rucked up shirt keeps sending tiny shivers down her spine. She knows he can feel it because every time she does it his lips quirk up in a very smug smirk for one so nubbish.

And he can't exactly hide that, because his lips are right on hers, all up in her chiz.

His hand skims up her side, and it's tender but not exactly gentle, and the 'tiny shiver' she gives is so violent she almost knocks him off from where he's pressing her down into the cushions. This time he doesn't smirk- he outright laughs.

"You seriously need to take it down a peg, Benson," she huffs, but she kind of thinks that maybe she's not at her _most_ intimidating, what with his hand up the back of her blouse, and his saliva on her face. "It's like you think you're good at this or something."

Something else that's new is that look on his face, as he leans closer- as far as he's able when they're already sealed together, chest to knee. His head tilts and there's just this… whatever, this _gleam_ in his eyes, that on anyone else she would call-

"I am _clearly_ good at this," his head dips, and his lips sip at her throat, and oh, he's so bold now, this boy and it's either killing her or extending her life by a thousand years (_she thinks she'll need that long to process all the *feels*. God it almost shames her that she's one of those butterfly-glitter-flower-fairy-daffodil girls now, but then he pulls her tighter and she can't bring herself to care)_. He sighs, and it matches his eyes, and she squirms and thinks-

"You don't think so?" He doesn't even pretend to not know the answer and she decides she's not quite daffodil _enough_ to take that laying down. She arches her back when he slowly begins to drag her top to the side, following the seam of the vee with his mouth, his weight heavy, but not unwelcome above her. She flushes. _Shit. _The laying down that's not allowed is the metaphorical one, she bargains with herself.

"Please, nub. You're a three at _best_." She doesn't know if her nearly feral kiss softens the blow for him at all, but from the way he moans and almost collapses on her for a moment, she knows it doesn't soften anything else. Her grin is probably as savage as her kiss had been. "I've seen better lips on a Gibby."

Indignation floods his features. He catches her hands in his, and keeps her down using his hips, and gives her wrists a little shake.

"You take that back!"

Now she is laughing, and it's unsympathetic.

"I'm serious!" she protests, but she thinks he knows she doesn't mean it from the way her jean clad legs lock together behind his back. "I was talking with Tasha the other day-"

"Bullshit! You've hated that poor girl since the incident where Gibby planned to kill me!" He's giving her a look she privately calls his "Whatchu-talkin'-bout-Sammy" face. It does not stop her snickering, even through the novelty of seeing it closer than ever before. Still pinned, she raises her head and drags her smirk down his jaw. Now _he_ shivers. He drops his head with a moan, and reapplies the lips in question with renewed vigor to her throat.

"No one gets away with making my friends fight," she says airily, and if it comes out slightly breathless, she is not going to choose to notice. Not, of course, that it _does_.

"Sam!" His outrage is real, but she can read him like a walking, squishable copy of Boogie Bear 6: A Bigger, Bearier Boogie. He can't hide his laughter from her. "You coached him! You booked the venue! You _literally _made your friends fight."

"Tomato, tomahto, nub."

He blows a raspberry by her ear, but he's too heavy for her to buck off. He can't quite force his voice to sound as annoyed as he seems to want it to sound. "It still doesn't explain why you can't stand her. Gibby loves her and she's really nice..."

He suddenly rears back and he looks... what do old people call it? Thunderstruck? Whatever, he looks like he's just played 'slap five' with his doodle and an electric socket, and she can't figure out what his damage is. She has anecdotal evidence going back almost eight years that suggests it's unlikely that _this_ is the moment where she has pushed him too far. If it turns out that he's allergic to her spit, and that his mother was right all this time about interpersonal contact, she'd giving up meat and reforming her ways. If it turns out that he thinks just because they're... whatever... good... feelings buddies... that they have to have all the same friends then-

"Ooooh." He stares down at her with wide eyes, and for some reason she is beginning to detest the expression on his face. "OH."

"What?" she shifts, but that only brings more attention to the fact that he's still got his grabbers under her shirt. He buries his face in the hollow between her chin and her shoulder and starts sniggering like a drunk hyena and it tickles her nipples and she never thought that she would think that phrase, ever, and so she shoves him, a little more forcefully this time, and it does the trick. He rocks back onto his knees, still between her legs and begins sliding his hands across her stomach in what she assumes is meant to be a soothing fashion. It's just wasted effort however, because he's still laughing and she still doesn't get the joke.

"Out with it, nub," she grinds out, crossing her arms in annoyance. This proves a mistake when, yes, his laughter stops, but his attention (not to mention his _hands_) immediately get drawn right back to her (admittedly impressive) rack. Boys!

"Benson!" she slaps at his hands, only for him to start laughing again and take her wrists. He is grinning and it is unrepentant, and in that moment she (_melts_) sort of wants to give in and grin back, even though she is super sorts of annoyed. Then she becomes SERIOUSLY SUPER sorts of annoyed at his next words and grinning is out of the question entirely.

"You were _jealous_!" He looks like the pig that swallowed the apple (or the Sam that swallowed the pig, for that matter). She, on the other hand, cannot be said to look anywhere near so happy, what with her mouth gaping open and her cheeks filling up with rage blood (again, Pucketts don't _blush_).

"You're _crazy!_" she tries to kick him off, but he uses his grip to pull her up so that she's sitting between his legs, with hers locked around his waist. He tugs her close, and resumes the lip to skin action, even though she's still spluttering and jerking around in his hold to try and hit him. "Seriously, you are six bags of loco nuts if you think for one _SECOND_-"

"It's cute!" he enthuses and knows it's the wrong thing if his flinch is anything to go by. He backtracks. "It's... well, ok. Can you blame me for being a _little _bit happy?"

"I can't blame you for a lot of things, Benson. Give me a try."

"It's just... you- jealous! Of me!" She kicks him in the back with her heel. "C'mon... Be nice."

"Does that sound like me?" she snarks, blowing a raspberry in his face. He squeezes her wrist a little tighter, in warning, when she actually manages to cuff his ear in her struggles, but turns it into a caress, running his thumb down her pulse and they both take a sharp breath in. She quiets down, almost involuntarily, and he does too, letting out a sigh she can feel fan across her cheek. (_Her suspiciously red cheek, her brain reminds her with an unpleasant cackle._) He rests his forehead against hers, and she loves him, she loves him _so much_-

"Oh, Sam," he whispers, sliding his hands up to lace his fingers with hers, palm to palm in another kiss. She blinks at him, drowsy, almost, from the sheer immensity of her need for him. There must be something stuck in her eyes or on her face or maybe it's caught in her hair, a non-verbal question mark that he seems compelled to answer, because he keeps going with the words, when she was ready to call it pax and get back to the heavier petting. "It's just nice to know you care. I didn't think you ever could."

She rallies, because her face is hot enough that she accepts that she's got to rewrite the rule about blushing, and she is almost vibrating against him where he is cradling her and... And he can't know that she loves him, because that would be bad. This is history, his, hers and her mother's talking here, and she needs to pull it together. "You? Not thinking? Shock and awe!" It's not her best, but it's something.

"No, I mean it. You amaze me, and you keep doing it, and you're everything I never knew I had to have and I just, I-"

"Yeah, yeah, Benson," she interrupts on an eye roll, but it's mostly so that she doesn't have to look directly at him. "Everyone is special, and we are all rockstar space kittens in the land of hearts and rainbows so let's just can it with the mushy gushy-" He stops her with a finger on her lips.

He moves slowly, every touch infinitely gentle in a way that their embraces haven't been before. He keeps his hand curled around the slope of her jaw but moves his thumb, sensing that he won't need to quiet her at this moment. He takes her hand and presses it slowly, carefully to his cheek and now she couldn't look away from him if she tried. "Shh, for once. Let me- Just... Let me."

He strokes his fingers across the apple of her cheek and she takes a deep breath in because this is too much, she isn't ready for this - _he's only going to hurt her but she just loves- "_You are special, Samantha Puckett. You matter and you matter to _me_."

He draws her closer, and kisses her ever so lightly. It's more the idea of his lips against hers, than the actual impression of them. _Would he? Could he really-_ She aches for him. She's dizzy from breathing in his air- their air- he's swaying against her, too- he must be as lightheaded as she is. "Sam, I-"

"Oh God, Freddie... Freddie, _please,_ I need-" She must look like a constrictor vine, wrapped as tightly around him as she can be, and still trying to find a way to press closer. "Oh, I need-" He is kissing the _life_ out of her and she is so fine with it, she would say prayers if it meant he would keep doing it and he is still so deliberately, disconcertingly tender it's almost brutal.

"Sam," he whispers, pulling away only far enough to see her eyes, to pin their stares together like he intends to sew them later. "I love you. _I love you_, and I will _keep_ loving you, whether you care or not and-" He's cut off and if their embrace was brutal when he was directing it, it's savage when she takes over.

"I care," she moans, and it's delirium. She wasn't supposed to let him know that! "Oh, fuck, Benson, I care and I have for- _god, _for so long, and _I love you_, _iloveyouiloveyouilove-_"

Her back slams down on to the couch again and she hears fabric tear and a clatter and she doesn't care if the house falls the hell down around them if it means she can get his skin to touch hers, until the jolt of being doused with a nearly full container of something sweet smelling, freezing and sticky breaks her out of it. Freddie gasps and arches at the impact of the impromptu ice shower, but that just drives him harder against her for a moment and she almost forgets from one second to the next that her mother is standing next to the couch with a bored expression and an empty Slurpee cup.

Pam clears her throat, and Freddie seems to suffer from a paralytic spasm- his limbs don't seem to know whether to move or freeze, but he scrambles backwards enough that her legs unwind and he falls to the floor. He looks horrified and it'd be funny if she weren't still picturing him taking her apart cunt first. She reflexively brushes at the slush dripping down her cleavage, and Freddie's eye slam shut as he starts babbling out broken apologies.

"Mom, what the hell?" she groans, still trying to switch gears, sitting up and shaking her head to try and clear it.

"Sorry, kids. I've got that couch booked tonight. Me and the new mister-"

"The urinal salesman?"

"No, he got arrested for bribing a sanitation worker. This guy is a professional plasma donar- he's the new new mister- anyway, we have some getting to know you gropes to get to and you're in my lucky spot."

That helps, actually, and both Sam and Freddie hop up with urgency. She tosses his jacket to him and both mutter something about showers, and antibacterial soap, and they practically sprint in opposite directions until at the last moment, as they pass each other, he reaches out and grabs her wrist. The both still for a moment and her heart flips over as his thumb moves slowly, gently across her pulse.

"I did call your name a few times," Pam grunts as she flips the cushion over, which breaks the spell again. "Just so you know."

* * *

><p><em>The Aftermath of Good Intentions:<em>

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Carly, ask me again. Maybe this next time will be the time that I want to talk about it."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Would you look at that? Still no."

"Sam!"

"I mean it, Carls. There is nothing about this situation that I want to think about, discuss or dissect in even the smallest way. It's over. It happened and it's over and it's done, and that's just how things go sometimes."

"You're crying."

"I'm allergic to this conversation."

"I just want to _help _you, Sam! That's all I want, is for you to be happy and you aren't happy and I want to fix it!"

"Look, Carly. Some things aren't fixable with a hug and some llamjun, ok? I'm not going to lie, this sucks chunks of skunk, but it's not the damn end of the world. I'm just mad that I let things get so out of hand."

"Out of hand?"

"Did anyone really think that this was going to work? I was just going to lay the mack, get him out of my system and then it got all _involved _and _optimistic _and I should have stuck with the original plan."

"That's no way to live your life, Sam-"

"This is not the speech I need at the moment, Carls. Really. I'll be fine, and I'll get up, and I'll even let you make me listen to two Christina Perry songs, but if you make even one move towards the Taylor Swift, so help me, Shay, there will be blood."

"Alright. I just want to you to know that I'm here if you need me. I, for one, think that you two were a little hasty in this whole thing, and that you were doing really well there for awhile, and you don't need to say it's over for ever if you don't want to and-"

"Ohmigod. Fine! Play Taylor- anything to make the facenoise stop! I'm _fine_, and really, this is all for the best! I mean it!"

* * *

><p><em>This time:<em>

She feels shaky, and she wonders if he can tell, and then wants to slap herself because it doesn't matter to him whether she is or isn't, and this is maybe the worst moment in her entire life. (_Worse than when her dad left ((because she never met him))- worse than when that psycho he mom had dated broke in with a chainsaw ((she'd always wanted to know what it felt like to kneecap someone with a bat, so it was kind of a win))- worse than the day she'd kissed him the second first time ((because then they'd had their whole future together wholly in front of them instead of in shattered pieces behind))) _She want to hate him- for using that moment against her, whether it was on purpose or not. She wants to rip him apart with her words, or her fists, and she doesn't know how else to do it except-

"Sam?" Derek asks, and the concern on his face smashes her in the guts again, because she knows it's genuine, and there aren't ten years of history shading it and clouding it and twisting it until she doesn't know which way is _up_ anymore.

She wants to love Derek and she wants to hate Freddie and she wants to be happy but a girl can't have everything and she doesn't have _anything_ so she might as well just bow to inevitable and-

"I'm sorry Derek. I really am," she wipes her eyes, trying to clear them. Something must be wrong with them, because at her words she thinks she sees Freddie sag with something that looked almost like relief, and that can't be right. "Let me just finish up with Freddie and we can go."


End file.
